japanese

This is the kind of bento item that you see quite often in homemade Japanese bentos - a simple deep fried fritter or nugget. I haven't featured a lot of these on these pages, because I know that many JustBento readers are leery of deep frying in general. However, they are quite easy to make, especially if you make them for dinner and reserve one or two for next day's bento - or even freeze a few. The general theory behind including a bit of fried food in a bento is to make it just a bit more filling and substantial. And remember, for a bento you only need one or two. continue reading...

I know that not everyone who follows JustBento follows my other food site, JustHungry. I put my ‘foundation’ type Japanese recipes over there more often than not, while I have especially bento-friendly recipes here on JustBento. Today though, there’s a recipe and how-to for making Japanese style rice (the method should be adaptable to other types of rice) in a frying pan. I know that the subject of whether or not a rice cooker is needed for bento-making comes up quite a lot in the forums, so if you’re looking for an alternative to getting a rice cooker, or just another backup rice-making method, give the good old frying pan a try! continue reading...